Is removing inorganic links a bad idea?
-
Hey there,
We have recently been in touch with a SEO agency that recomended we remove all inorganic links from our backlink profile.
Most of the links are pretty good but there are some news sites that have sitewide links to our site. The link is in the nav menu, as a useful link. We didn't ask for this link it was totally organic.
Also some link building in the past was focused on anchor text so some of the keywords may have been over emphasised.
Is it a good idea to go about removing all of the potentially inorganic looking links?
My concern is that we wipe out links that google are actually valuing. I still know sites are ranking #1 with much more dubious backlink profiles, and then there's this guy who removed his sitewide backlinks and dropped in his ranking:
http://www.seomoz.org/q/removed-site-wide-links
If a competitor decided to add negative links to our site, it would take longer to find and remove negative links than it would for them to add them. It seems odd that google would allow negative SEO to be that easy..
What do you think?
-
There isn't much traffic at all as the link is actually in a sub-sub-menu in the nav (the strange things people do).
But I'm more concerned whether removing the link will actually have a negative effect on our SEO
-
Yeah it's linked with our company name so not too dodgey
We also have other sites linking sitewide with our logo, also not paid, just people are saying we are good place to get info from. Some of these are in the sidebar so could look like paid ads..
We have 10,000 links from 350 domains in OSE. Probably 97% of those links are organic. Do you think that would be causing an impact?
-
How much traffic is this site wide link providing? None? Deal with it! Tons? Leave it be.
-
What keyword are they using to link to you? Have you noticed that your rankings have dropped for that keyword? If it's an exact anchor text match keyword, you could consider asking them to change it to your brandname, but again only if you believe that link is negatively impacting you.
It also depends on how robust your link profile is. If you already have thousands of links, then 1 site with a sitewide link probably won't impact you that much, compared to if you have a relatively small link profile.
-
Thanks Irving. The issue isn't so much about removing all the links, but rather what to do with sitewide ones that provide a disproportionate amount of links from one domain.
Should they be dealt to, we could ask them to remove it or make it nofollow, or should we just roll on with the rest of our SEO work, and only respond to that issue if we see a manual penalty?
You're right about dodgey ones too, definitely worth dealing to them now.
-
Yeah that was my feeling too.
However their response is that we are being algorithmically penalized because we have a 10,000's of links from 100's of domains, so a large amount of those links are potentially site wide.
(1 site for example has 100,000's pages with us in their main sitewide navigation).
So to move forward with our SEO work we first need to remove the links that appear inorganic.
Could this be possible or do links only need to be removed when you have a link warning?
-
I would look at the sites linking to you (always a good practice) and if you see any really dodgy ones have them removed. I wouldn't go removing all of your links if you have not incurred a penalty. I'd use that effort on getting new good links to improve your link profile.
-
Have you received any warnings in Google Webmaster Tools or seen a drop in ranking for keywords that are targeted in the sitewide links? If not, I would not remove any links, as they could be passing link juice. If you ever receive a link warning, then I would consider disavowing or removing links at that time.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
How to get more keyword ideas
I am trying to get more keyword ideas for one of my project. For example the seed keyword is computer virus and the results which i get is keywords related to the phrase computer virus such as virus in computer , virus threats but actually i am trying to get search details on actual threat names or types of viruses and i expect output such as malware, trojan etc.. ( Currently using ad words keyword planner to fetch keyword data ) Is there any way to achieve this ? Even if i use "types of computer viruses" as seed keyword i am not getting the types of viruses people searching for instead i get keywords ideas such as computer viruses, computer threats etc... ? Can somebody suggest a solution ?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | NortonSupportSEO0 -
23k Links from one doman pointing to a single page, good or bad?
Hey all, So I found a domain that GWT tells me has 23k links pointing to a landing page. I found that the link is part of their global nav as a text ad and that's why it's probably registering so many links. The site has a DA of 56, is this a bad thing? Could it be hurting the rest of my site's ability to rank? Thanks, Roman
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Dynata_panel_marketing0 -
Should I remove pages to concentrate link juice?
So our site is database powered and used to have up to 50K pages in google index 3 years ago. After re-design that number was brought down to about 12K currently. Legacy URLs that are now generating 404 have mostly been redirected to appropriate pages (some 13K 301 redirects currently). Trafficked content accounts for about 2K URLs in the end so my question is should I in context of concentrating link juice to most valuable pages: remove non-important / least trafficked pages from site and just have them show 404 no-index non-important / least trafficked pages from site but still have them visible 1 or 2 above plus remove from index via Webmaster Tools none of the above but rather something else? Thanks for any insights/advice!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | StratosJets0 -
Do I have to many internal links which is diluting link juice to less important pages
Hello Mozzers, I was looking at my homepage and subsequent category landing pages on my on my eCommerce site and wondered whether I have to many internal links which could in effect be diluting link juice to much of the pages I need it to flow. My homepage has 266 links of which 114 (43%) are duplicate links which seems a bit to much to me. One of my major competitors who is a national company has just launched a new site design and they are only showing popular categories on their home page although all categories are accessible from the menu navigation. They only have 123 links on their home page. I am wondering whether If I was to not show every category on my homepage as some of them we don't really have any sales from and only concerntrate on popular ones there like my competitors , then the link juice flowing downwards in the site would be concerntated as I would have less links for them to flow ?... Is that basically how it works ? Is there any negatives with regards to duplicate links on either home or category landing page. We are showing both the categories as visual boxes to select and they are also as selectable links on the left of a page ? Just wondered how duplicate links would be treated? Any thoughts greatly appreciated thanks Pete
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | PeteC120 -
How hard would it be to take a well-linked site, completely change the subject matter & still retain link authority?
So, this would be taking a domain with a domain authority of 50 (200 root domains, 3500 total links) and, for fictitious example, going from a subject matter like "Online Deals" to "The History Of Dentistry"... just totally unrelated new subject for the old/re-purposed domain. The old content goes away entirely. The domain name itself is a super vague .com name and has no exact match to anything either way. I'm wondering, if the DNS changed to different servers, it went from 1000 pages to a blog, ownership/contacts stayed the same, the missing pages were 301'd to the homepage, how would that fare in Google for the new homepage focus and over what time frame? Assume the new terms are a reasonable match to the old domain authority and compete U.S.-wide... not local or international. Bonus points for answers from folks who have actually done this. Thanks... Darcy
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | 945010 -
Link Building with a Scholarship
One of my clients is using a scholarship to build links. We have a nofollow PR campaign getting ready to start and are doing some social marketing for the scholarship page on the site. We are also trying to get backlinks from highschools and colleges that link to scholarship opportunities. So far this has been a slow process. Does anybody have any advice for speeding any of this up? Has somebody ever done a campaign like this before? Is there some kind of database with financial aid contact info for a lot of schools? I contact a lot of schools and always tend to get put on the backburner.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Atomicx0 -
Remove content that is indexed?
Hi guys, I want to delete a entire folder with content indexed, how i can explain to google that content no longer exists?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Valarlf0 -
What are your thoughts on using Dripable, VitaRank, or similar service to build URL links too dilute link profile???
One of my sites has a very spamy link profile, top 20 anchors are money keywords. What are your thoughts on using Dripable, VitaRank, or similar service to help dilute the link profile by building links with URLs, Click Here, more Info, etc. I have been building URL links already, but due to the site age(over 12 years) the amount of exact match anchor text links is just very large and would take forever to get diluted.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | 858-SEO0